For the past several months there has been a lot of talk in our fair city about how to get home after a night of imbibing on the square. True stories have morphed into larger than life urban legends; the waitress who was arrested for walking home under the influence; the poor man who was arrested trying to cross the sidewalk to reach his designated driver’s car; the woman who cart wheeled into an elderly lady’s walker while applying lipstick and downing her fourth dirty martini. She wasn’t jailed exactly, but was definitely convicted in the court of public opinion.
Lack of public transportation has been pinpointed as problematic. Teetotalers have had reason to rejoice as the bars have been emptying earlier, and earlier.
Jessie Broussard, student, was afraid of being unjustly incarcerated for enjoying a night out on the town, and decided to do some research. She sat down with me recently over a few Irish coffees to talk about her findings.
“I was playing around on Ebay one night, looking for limited edition Star Trek figurines, when I found it. A jet pack. It’s powered by jets of escaping gasses, it’s designed for short range flight, and the seller, a Ukranian by the name of Jaroslaw Wisniewski, assured me it’s perfectly safe. He also reminded me that packing peanuts are not edible. I didn’t ask if he learned that the hard way.”
Jessie has been using the jet pack for a few weeks now. She says she enjoys the freedom it has given her, and that she feels like a super hero when she steps into a dimly lit alleyway and fires it up. But the quick flights home have not been without danger.
“I guess I didn’t realize how many duck hunters there are in Mississippi,” she said with a bewildered laugh. “Thank God they’re not better shots!”
She recalled a night that might have ended in tragedy.
“I was flying down South Lamar, enjoying the view and was almost taken out, well, impaled really, by a giant Rebel flag pole. It was sticking out of the back of a moving truck. I’ve heard the South will rise again…but does it have to rise in my airspace?”
She’s also had several late night costume changes. She realized her flight suit needed to be streamlined to minimize wind resistance. She’s tried everything from assless chaps (“Cheek burn. Ouch!”), to head to toe black ninja wear. (“The duck hunters couldn’t see me, but that meant the ducks couldn’t either. Double ouch!”) She finally settled on her husband’s old Batman pajamas, legwarmers, and some custom made reflective sweat bands.
When asked about legal problems that may arise from her unusual way of getting from here to there, she shrugged.
“I’ve heard rumors that over at City Hall they were going to discuss outfitting police officers with jet packs. Then I heard that the issue was being tabled. Indefinitely. Who knows? As other folks around the world start traveling by jet pack, we could see all kinds of laws being rewritten. I tried to get in touch with someone in Space Law at the university, but rumor has it you can’t drag those people away from their telescopes long enough to get a word in edgewise.”
